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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28796691">something imagined</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/nobodyis/pseuds/nobodyis'>nobodyis</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Deltora Quest - Emily Rodda</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Canon Compliant, Gen, Not Proofread, but can it really be canon compliant if i don't remember the canon?</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 09:01:52</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>904</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28796691</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/nobodyis/pseuds/nobodyis</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Faith, this shell of a person, imagines that she has memories just as fake as her.</p><p>(Contains a very loose understanding of canon events and lore. Read with a grain of salt, or several.)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>something imagined</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Just as much as Faith exists, Faith does not exist. She is smoke and mirrors wrapped around itself, shadowy magic binding them together. She is created with a single purpose: to deceive. She is the bait set in a net; a false hope designed to lure in a <em> someone</em>, who would bring with them another <em> someone</em>.</p><p>This is how it can go: she is nothing more than a projection, entirely lacking a will and manipulated like a puppet on a string.</p><p>This is how it can go: she is still little more than a projection, but where before there was <em> nothing </em> now there is <em> hollow.</em></p><p> </p><p>…</p><p> </p><p>She is solid, like most things are. She is cold, like dead things are. Faith, this shell of a person, imagines that she has memories just as fake as her.</p><p>She is two, and she thinks she remembers her mother whispering in her ear, humming a soft melody as quietly as she can. Try as she might, Faith cannot remember the tune.</p><p>She is four, and she remembers her mother telling her of a sister she may never know. Jasmine is her name, and she is left alone in a forest and her fate uncertain. She is brave, even at the same age Faith is now. And although her mother worries, she thinks Jasmine will be fine, strong as she is.</p><p>She is six, and the last words her mother tells her are about Jasmine. She tells Faith of a crystal <em> it </em>uses to contact its spies and minions scattered throughout the home the others speak of. She tells Faith that if she ever gets the opportunity, to look for it and seek aid.</p><p>(What she does not remember is that Anna had died years ago, and even if she had been bearing child they would not have survived for long.)</p><p>She is seven, and she hears that her father has died in the arena. Torn apart by a Vraal, much the same way countless others have died. The things that sit in the stands had cheered especially loud when he had, his blood spilling over the floor.</p><p>(What she does not remember is that Jarred had escaped, that although wounded and confused he had still managed to cross over the border, the first and only one to do so.)</p><p>She is ten, and she feels more than hears the distant - but close, and loud - crackling of a terrible anger. It rolls across the skies she cannot see but knows should be the same dismal grey they always are, and she imagines that the things that crawl outside are baring their teeth and screaming at a sky that is not grey but a deep, ugly red.</p><p>She is ten, and the only thing she can cling to is the hope that the sister she had never known could hear her message and come to save her. She finds the crystal, feeling hunted and haunted, and begs whoever is listening.</p><p>Several times, she tries. And finally - staring through the glass was a reflection of her. The reflection looks older, freer - although she supposes anyone would look freer than her.</p><p>
  <em> "Jasmine! It is you!"</em>
</p><p>But of course, all of those are lies.</p><p> </p><p>…</p><p> </p><p>Here is the real Faith: she is there when she is needed, and when she is not she flickers around the edges like an apparition. The guards, as common as they are, as loyal as they are, are hardly the most trusted. So she exists for them where otherwise she would not have.</p><p>Faith is created for the Jasmine who had lived alone in that forest, who had not known human companionship and has yet to adjust to living with people. She is created to appeal to Jasmine's loneliness, to the way she did not remember what it was like to have a family anymore. </p><p>Her bright green eyes look through the dark hair that falls in her face, full of a fear and defiance that if looked closely at, if examined, rings false. She does not think about how Jasmine, although alone, is not hollow.</p><p>When she succeeds at her task, she will disappear. Until then, there is cold metal around her wrists and ankles and she is led from place to place, leaving taunts for the one who would soon follow, looking for her. </p><p>In the cold, she has waited, and knows now that the time has almost come. Although she does not hear the cries of the discarded and decaying guards, she knows because they have begun to move the project.</p><p>Faith will be gone soon, she thinks.</p><p> </p><p>…</p><p> </p><p>When she is ten, (when she is not ten and has never been), she stands in the arena, where her father had died so long ago. Her sister is screaming, as scarlet worms writhe on the ground, as a piercing note rings through the air and threatens the magic that she is made of.</p><p>
  <em> "There is no escape, Jasmine." </em>
</p><p>They were never truly sisters, and indeed she herself had never really been anything at all. Pretending that she was, imagining herself the parents that she would have had, none of it amounted to much. After all, she was nothing but fake.</p><p>As she speaks, the smoke and mirrors that is her is unravelling. She laughs, a mockery of some kind of happiness, even as she distorts and fades. </p><p>Faith is dissolving into the nothing it had always been.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>"you can't go ooc if the character in question isn't real and has very little dialogue," i say, as i go ooc.</p><p>anyways i know my writing skill leaves much to be desired but *submits to the mortifying ordeal of being known*</p><p>also, if i made any mistakes typing this, feel free to let me know :) it's surprisingly hard to type anything when some of the keys on your keyboard don't work. figures!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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